Herbalife: Supporting direct sales with microservices

Founded in 1980, Herbalife has grown into a global leader in direct sales within the healthy food industry. From nutrition and weight management to energy, fitness, and personal care, the brand has built over the years a reputation for trust and quality, sustained by a direct sales model that is part of its very DNA.

For Herbalife, the continuous expansion of its distributor network was like an accelerated metabolism: the more it grew, the greater the need for a solution that could support effective sales and provide customers with a simple way to connect with consultants. 

At the same time, international expansion brought new challenges around access management, calling for organization and scalability. And there was untapped potential - turning tools that help customers plan meals, recipes, and calorie intake into true “digital supplements” for the business, capable of boosting sales while enriching the customer experience.

How could all these goals be brought together into one comprehensive, scalable solution? That was the challenge we faced when taking on the project. Discover how we aligned business and technology objectives through a microservices-based approach.

01. Digital transformation at full scale required

When we joined the project, Herbalife was built on outdated, highly centralized technology. This complicated customer and partner acquisition, as well as onboarding, requiring many manual steps. Our task was to minimize these steps, digitize the processes, and wrap them in a flexible system. We had to rebuild everything from scratch, as continuing with the Ruby on Rails backend was not an option.

02. Interconnected, global project

Because of its international scope, the project required adapting application features to the needs of users in the EMEA countries. This included support for address validation and currency conversion across all countries, as well as translations into more than 50 languages. Herbalife needed a partner capable of unifying solutions for distributors, customers, sales teams, and managers. Objective? Creating applications with smooth data flows that could be independently developed and scaled.

03. Complex sales structure and multiple payment providers

Sales at Herbalife are multi-layered, involving numerous distributors, regional managers, and other stakeholders. On top of that, in-app purchases from the Herbalife store had to be processed through three different payment providers. Complex scenarios with merchant accounts and split payments added further challenges, requiring skillful integration to ensure reliability and compliance.

01. Members app supporting distributors

We developed an app that helps distributors manage prospects and customers, track body measurements, and provide nutritional guidance. Distributors can stay in direct contact with prospects and customers through the in-app chat, keeping track of opportunities and maximizing sales potential. The Graphan-based data visualisation we built provides them with insights on different app use metrics.

02. Customers app delivering extra value

For end customers, the app was designed to boost retention by offering value beyond product access. Acting as a health advisor, it enables automatic generation of nutritional advice based on body measurements and goals, tracking of body metrics and nutritional intake. Based on real-time tracking data from Bluetooth electronic scales, the app updates the personalized meal plans. Using it, customers can also purchase Herbalife products, contact distributors, and access a database of Herbalife meal recipes.

03. CMS app empowering sales management

Given Herbalife’s extensive, hierarchical sales structure, we built a tailored CMS supporting multiple access levels for regional managers and global administrators. From this system, users can manage the product catalog and meal recipes, target communications with news and updates, and monitor orders, purchases, and distributor status. All distributor and customer actions are logged, ensuring full history is available for customer support and business insights.

04. Microservice architecture for unlimited growth

When taking over the project, we replaced the legacy Ruby on Rails backend with a microservice-based architecture. This provided scalability and flexibility which was crucial for Herbalife due to its expanding, international sales. With a strong team of top specialists, we delivered a versatile, scalable solution within the expected timeframe, laying the foundation for sustainable, global growth.

1. Full alignment with client processes

Each of the three applications was equipped with a dedicated API tailored precisely to its functions and needs. This ensured that the solutions were fully aligned with real business processes, leading to smoother onboarding and greater efficiency in users’ daily work.

2. Secure and flexible access control

The use of individual permission models in each application enabled precise management of access to data and features. This not only strengthened the security of operations but also ensured that every user saw exactly what they needed, without unnecessary restrictions.

3. Unified data and clear business insights

By aggregating data centrally and logging user actions based on business processes, managers gained a complete view of distributor and customer activities. This made it possible to respond more quickly to needs while also making decisions based on reliable data and real sales indicators.

4. Seamless scalability and growth readiness

Standardized integration between services and consistent internal communication made the system easy to expand with new functionalities. As a result, the client received a solution free of technological limitations - one that grows alongside the business and supports international expansion.